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ASTORIA, NY — The Museum of the Moving Image is getting a major renovation. The centerpiece of the $67 million project will be a new 264 seat theater that will give visitors the sensation of being inside a floating spaceship. Closed since 2008, the museum is expected to reopen in January, 2011 with several inaugural events, including the showing of twenty newly restored and rediscovered films, silent films, and several retrospectives of distinguished filmmakers.

The museum’s inaugural screenings will include a slate of 20 newly restored rediscovered films, an avant-garde series, a showing of 1928’s “L'Argent,” a silent cinema festival and retrospectives of French director Alain Resnais, documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, Italian maestro Vittorio De Sica and American maverick Arthur Penn.

“A movie can be an artistic experience of the highest order, a life-changing experience, but only in the right format,” said David Schwartz, the museum’s curator. “The Moving Image is about to become one of the finest venues in the world for viewing films.”